Death from the Skies 2016

I recently picked up the new Death From the Skies book.  It contains a lot of significant changes to the way flyers work in the game.  It has some interesting effects on the way dark eldar use flyers.

The first part of the book contains a few pages with general rules for flying vehicles that "replace those from Warhammer 40,000: The Rules".  Some things remain the same and some things are added.  All flyers are now divided into 3 categories; attack flyers, bombers and fighters.  All flyers are given a Pursuit and Agility value.  The Razorwing has 5 and 5 which is tied for the highest in the game with the crimson hunter.  The voidraven is 5 and 4.  

Next is "Air Superiority".  This is pretty huge.  It says

"If only one player has Flyers in Reserve at the end of the dogfight phase, then they are said to have Air Superiority.  A player with Air Superiority can choose to add or subtract 1 from their reserve rolls, and their opponent must subtract 1 from all their reserve rolls."  

This has the potential to give your dark eldar army the -1/+1 ability from the CWE Autarch and the -1 reserve rolls for your opponent strategic warlord trait just for taking flyers in your army.  Will this be a significant enough advantage for people to start considering taking more flyers?

Flyers can perform a "break turn" maneuver which is a 90 degree turn during their movement. You will need to pass an agility test to pull it off but with agility 5 on the razorwing, only a 6 will fail.  This pseudo vector dancer is a great new tool for dark eldar and something we have all wanted for a long time.  

Flyers shooting at flyers has also changed.  Flyer weapons must now have skyfire to hit at full ballistic skill.  "Fighter" class flyers can choose to enter skyfire mode with all of their weapons at the start of the shooting phase.  Fighters also have a -1 Ballistic Skill penalty to shooting at ground targets.  This is pretty harsh for razorwings in the case of lances but it shouldnt make too much of a difference with the missiles.  

Your flyers can be arranged into attack patterns.  The flyers in attack patterns are all separate units but must stay in a predetermined pattern 2-6" away from each other to get the benefits.  The bonus rules for each attack pattern are different depending on your class of flyer.  You can take an attack wing as its own detachment.  The command benefits include bonuses to the dogfighting phase, the ability to have all your flyer wings come in on one dice roll, and objective secured to hovering flyers.  This could be useful for dark eldar alongside the combined arms detachment.  You would be able to take 3 fast attack choices AND a few razorwings too.  

The Dogfighting phase is .... pretty silly.  When both players have flyers in reserve they can issue challenges to the other flyers.  The first thing you do is ask the opponent if he accepts.  If he doesnt then you dice off and the winner chooses what happens.  The dogfighting phase could just end right there.  If the challenger wins, he can choose one of his flyers and one of his opponents to enter the dogfight.  You need to set up the flyers on any available surface 36" away from each other.  Both players secretly choose a 1, 2 or 3 on a hidden dice them compare both values on a chart modified by pursuit/difference.  These represent their engagement and mid fight maneuvers.  
The winner of each of the phases will determine how far away the flyers are from each other and what facing each one has.  Then you shoot at each other like normal.  Any damage or penetrating hit effects carry over into the game turn.  I simulated it with 2 of my razorwings and I didn't find it very interesting.  Razorwings do have very high stats though so it would give them an advantage in this phase against things like stormravens or bombers.  

You can designate one model from your Flyer Wing to be the Wing Leader.  He gets a free trait similar to the flyer ace on a roll of a d3.  The Dark Eldar ones are:

1-2:  Add 1 to the wing leader's pursuit value.  Add an additional 1 when making engagement rolls for the wing leader in a dogfight.  

3-4:  Reroll one dice roll for the wing leader each turn.  

5-6:  Add 1 to this wing leader's ballistic skill if they attack before the other flyers in their wing.

There is one formation for Dark Eldar in the book called the Blackheart Talon.  It consists of 1 flyer wing of 2 razorwings and 2 voidravens.  One of the voidravens must be the wing leader.  While they are in an attack pattern, the razorwings get interceptor.  Enemy flyers cannot select a voidraven bomber as a target of a dogfight while there are still razorwings in reserve.  Pick one unit at the start of the game, all flyers get preferred enemy against that unit.  

None of the stats, point costs or weapon profiles of the 2 flyers were changed.  

I am a little disappointed with this book.  I really don't think that the Air Superiority reserve manipulation thing will be enough to force people to consider flyers.  The attack wing bonuses do provide some nice buffs to bombers and fighters.  In my OPINION, the amount of flyers you need to take to get these bonuses is not cost effective.  The razorwing is one of my favorite aspects of my dark eldar army.  It falls into a weird category where it is a "fighter" class but it excels at shooting targets on the ground.  It will shoot at ground targets at BS 3 now.  It has good stats for the dogfighting phase but the only weapons that can hurt flyers are the dark lances since all of the missiles are blasts.  Thankfully, the attack patterns give them a boost when shooting other flyers.  I have 2 in my army so they would get  ballistic skill 5 when shooting flyers.  If I were to buy one more I could get either tank hunters or ignores cover against flyers.  The attack patterns for bombs are pretty nice.  2 bombers gives +1 strength to bombs, 3 bombers give reroll armor pen or ignores cover.  If you happen to have 2 voidravens then have fun but I wouldnt run out and buy 3 of them for this.  

The dogfighting phase is pretty lame.  You are basically playing a mini side game where rolling off and playing rock/paper/scissors can allow flyers to fight each other while they are in reserves.  It seems complex enough to be annoying but simple enough to lack depth and strategy.  

What do you guys think about flyers and the new changes?

Sounds interesting, but I'm not really a fan. I think fmc's should be able to charge flyers if in flying mode. Apart from that, fling rules should have stayed the same imo.

Thanks for the write up. The information you have provided me just reinforces my feelings that it isn't worth the investment. I currently have 2 razorwings and 1 voidraven but I just don't see the point in buying more flyers and this supplement as the advantages and additions added by the book are just not appealing enough to me.

An aside. Your missiles can hit flyers now per FAQ.

I saw a pic that thay were changing the implosion missile, did that not happen.
It seems like we really didn't get any bonus to our flyers apart from not having to take razor wings in fast attack slots. The -1 bs go ground targets for the razor wing sucks, as for ad the attack wing bonuses am I correct in assuming that you have to have 3 or more flyers to benefit from it, if so that's not going to do me any good I'm not going to buy another flyer that was made worse to get bonuses that don't even affect what I use the the thing for anyway.
Over all not really disappointed in what I am seeing so far, I kinda expected worse

Well the good thing is, that we now can do a pseudo vector dance with a high profile value.
We have Agility 5, so that should work well with us, but a Stormraven only has 3 (ok thats good enough most of the time ).

The bad thing is, that the Formation cost nearly 600 Pts, and i am guessing that no one wants to take 1/3 with flyers. The Bonus is that you can take other Fast Attack Units.
The Problem is, in most 2000 Vs. 2000 games you won´t have the space on the table for the rules to take affect, as you can only be 2 inches apart from each other flyer.

And there is a contradiction within itself, because you have to use your bomb in the movement phase, but the rules only apply after the movement phase until your next movement phase. That means you only benefit from the +1S Rule for Bombs in the next movement phase. The FAQ is saying that you cant drop a Bomb in the same turn in which you are going into ongoing Reserve, that means you have to have your Bomber 3 Rounds on the Table, good Luck.

The Dogfight-Phase will take longer than the Psi-Phase, and is more of a Minigame as a normal Phase. I already know my group wont play with it.

Most of our Players are pissed because a Stormraven or Stormtalon are declared as attack flyers and they can´t attack fast skimmer with them.
Well...if a cookie is taken away from a Marine Player, you can be damn sure he won´t be playing against you
Of course, if you got nerfed no one cares ^^

All in All, its not worth 40+ Bucks, as you only need 8 pages form it for your Army.
Maybe get the eBook and copy your pages.

I talked to my GW Guy, and he said this Book is just for fun in your game, if you need it. Apo-Players wont be interested in it, because you are not seeing many flyers in it, and Tournament Players arent interested for the same reason, and the formations are to pricy for normal games.

But pseudo Vector Dance still rules and gives us a little bit of Punch back

They've already done Dogfight rules, and literally every group I'm aware of opted not to use them. I don't see that changing.

The dogfight rules will be something that people who are into them have some fun with, and few other people will bother with. A lot of things have to go right for you to actually get a shot off at your opponent, so anyone terrified of losing all their flyers before they come on shouldn't be.

I've picked the book up, and what I like about it is
i) having a handy reference to everyone else's flyers (I only have two Codex books)
ii) the missions
iii) the art.

I think on balance I'd prefer to play with the rules than not (it's all about the Break Turns, baby!), but it's really not such a big deal either way. It's a pity they didn't take the opportunity to really fix some issues and recost some planes and their options *cough*voidraven*cough* but that was always a triumph of hope over experience.

The general response locally was screw it, this is another cash grab gimmick by GW and we will not bother with it at all.

"Most of our Players are pissed because a Stormraven or Stormtalon are declared as attack flyers and they can´t attack fast skimmer with them."

Why can't they attack fast skimmers with them?

Attack flyers are good against ground targets: they can shoot normally.

But air targets like flyers, jetbikes and skimmers are no ground targets.

They get a penalty of -1 BS or snap fire when shooting at those. I'm not sure. I hope it's the latter because suddenly, we are resilient against most enemy flyers.

So reading through the death from the skies book, all I could find was that fighter types receive the -1 penalty to BS when firing at ground targets and that is under the "fighter skyfire mode" on page 59 where it says that fighters can choose to enter skyfire mode.

As far as I can tell, attack type flyers just can't enter into skyfire mode, which would mean they can't fire at other flyers at full BS. I read this as attack type flyers still fire at everything else at full BS.

Even though a skimmer is considered an "air target", it's not a zooming flyer, so doesn't require skyfire to hit.  

That's how I read it. It's entirely possible that I missed things though.

Really? I hope you're mistaken...

The Red King wrote:

An aside. Your missiles can hit flyers now per FAQ.

Can other blast weapons? like d scyths?

The FAQ says that blast weapons and templates with the skyfire special rule can target flyers, but it doesn't specifically say they hit them. I was looking into that too hoping our shatterfields might be a bit more worth it, but so far it looks like you can only target and not actually hit. People have brought it up on the warhammer Facebook post under monstrous creatures.

Hopefully this link works to where the Facebook FAQ post is https://m.facebook.com/1575682476085719/photos/pb.1575682476085719.-2207520000.1462777932./1610526835934616

btfdeech wrote:

So reading through the death from the skies book, all I could find was that fighter types receive the -1 penalty to BS when firing at ground targets and that is under the "fighter skyfire mode" on page 59 where it says that fighters can choose to enter skyfire mode.

As far as I can tell, attack type flyers just can't enter into skyfire mode, which would mean they can't fire at other flyers at full BS. I read this as attack type flyers still fire at everything else at full BS.

Even though a skimmer is considered an "air target", it's not a zooming flyer, so doesn't require skyfire to hit.  

That's how I read it. It's entirely possible that I missed things though.

The Book says a Skimmer is a flyer when it comes to count it as ground or air target. I read it, that an attack flyer can´t attack a flyer, there is nothing mentioned that is has to be a zooming flyer.
There is nothing mentioned that he can attack a flyer with Snap-Shots either.

Alot of Questions in this Book XD

Anyone able to tell me what 'types' Necron flyers are now? And Helldrakes?

Attack flyer, both

Alvaneron wrote:

Attack flyer, both

Thanks. So that means they don't get skyfire and get -1 to hit ground targets, right?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Alvaneron wrote:

Attack flyer, both

Thanks. So that means they don't get skyfire and get -1 to hit ground targets, right?

I am honestly still confused as to what the differences are...

Count Adhemar wrote:

Alvaneron wrote:

Attack flyer, both

Thanks. So that means they don't get skyfire and get -1 to hit ground targets, right?

Yes and No.

They dont get Skyfire, unless they are in a formation that allows them to
They have the normal BS against Ground Targets.

Fighters have Skyfire an -1BS on Ground Targets

Ah right, thanks. So, skimmers and jetbikes are not ground targets (I think) which means that Hellturkeys have to snapfire, which means that Baleflamers are now useless against skimmers and jetbikes?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Ah right, thanks. So, skimmers and jetbikes are not ground targets (I think) which means that Hellturkeys have to snapfire, which means that Baleflamers are now useless against skimmers and jetbikes?

Yes, and i dont know.

It says you can´t fire at "air-targets" with attack flyers (incl. Skimmer and Jetbikes) but there is nothing that says you cant fire with full BS and have to use SS.
You just cant fire at them at all.

And i hope i misread this part.

Alvaneron wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

Ah right, thanks. So, skimmers and jetbikes are not ground targets (I think) which means that Hellturkeys have to snapfire, which means that Baleflamers are now useless against skimmers and jetbikes?

Yes, and i dont know.

It says you can´t fire at "air-targets" with attack flyers (incl. Skimmer and Jetbikes) but there is nothing that says you cant fire with full BS and have to use SS.
You just cant fire at them at all.

And i hope i misread this part.

I hope you didn't. My main opponents have 4 Helldrakes and half a dozen flying Croissants. To make most of my army immune to them would be fantastic